Stores we love

I love all of the different place card holders you can buy and own quite a few sets of them but found that I rarely need to instruct my dinner guests where to sit. Undaunted, I decided to come up with ways to use them besides telling people where to enjoy the meal. Just as a tip, I get most of my unique place card holders from eBay.

My most common use of the holders is to label food on my buffet. I like to make it clear which dishes are vegetarian, which contain seafood, which have nuts, which one is spicier than the other, etc. This saves me from having to repeat the information over and over and saves a possible allergic reaction for one of my guests. I also like to label all of the dishes just because it is sometimes difficult to tell what something is before digging into it.

I like to add a quote or question to the included card and then put them at each place for dinner. At Christmas, I put out my place card holders with famous Christmas quotes written on the card. I’ve also cut pictures from my old Christmas cards and put them at each place setting. The quotes are great conversation starters. You could also include little bits of trivia or put Trivial Pursuit cards in them for a little bit of game time at the dinner table. Putting a stack of kid trivia cards on the dinner table every night is a great idea to have some family interaction and to make eating veggies a little more fun!

I keep one of my larger ones in the kitchen to hold my recipe card as I cook. This keeps the recipe clean and visible for me. Another sits by the kitchen phone holding a small card with my favorite take-out spot numbers for when I burn dinner!

Use a few of them together to hold pictures. These are especially good again at Christmas time to display all of the wallet sized photos you receive in Christmas cards. I keep one on my desk at work to hold a picture of my daughter and husband. It’s nice to be able to put any sized picture in the clip area which makes me change them out a little more often.

My daughter enjoys playing with some of them with her dolls. I have some that are tea pots that are the perfect size for her Groovy Girl Dolls. I have little chairs that are the right size for some of her smaller dolls. Just make sure that there aren’t any sharp points or loose pieces on them before handing them over!

Please comment here and let me know if you have any creative uses for your placecard holders. I have so many that I still want to use and a freakishly strong desire to collect more. Which reminds me…post links to any unique ones as well. I am always on the hunt!